A new PS3 exclusive action RPG by the developers of the cult classic King's Field was recently released called Demon's Souls. It's an action RPG where you play as a nameless "hero" who has to save a kingdom from an evil king summoning monsters. I say "hero" because once you start the game you can do whatever the hell you want. Save the world, loot the place, rule the world, kill other players, who cares it's your choice.
screenshots hereWhat has me most excited is the attention to detail. Objects interact with the world on a physics based system. Cover crumbles, weapons bounce against the terrain (meaning you can't use a spear in a tight hallway), monsters roam the levels never staying in one spot (a dragon perches on a pulpit, launches fireballs, flies out of range, comes dive bombing in, etc.) and so on.
While the game is single player, there's a unique procedural multiplayer that affects you if you're online. Basically, there's multiple universes and your character is a soul in every universe but your own. Periodically you can see other "souls" (other players in their own game) fighting stuff. You can't interact with them as they're essentially ghosts. The different universes will often merge so players can leave messages in the dirt to be read by anybody, you can find bloodstains of dead players, discarded equipment, and sometimes a player's soul will appear as an antagonist.
Currently the game is Japan only but for whatever reason it was translated fully in English (except the manual). Sony has no plans to release it internationally which is criminal. It sold out in Japan the first week! I imported the game from Australia and god dammit I can't wait to play it.
on multiplayer
It seems like they wanted to integrate multiplayer into the game without hampering the single-player experience. They integrate it in such a way that it never breaks the atmosphere and conventions created by the single-player. Well, there really is only a “single-player” mode; the multiplayer features are just integrated into it if your console is online.
1. I believe the story has you being a person who is resurrected by a sorceress to go fight the evil. Since this is the story for everyone playing, I guess she has an army of souls. When you play, you can see some other players as they play their game. You can't see what they're fighting or anything; you just see their character as they do fighting animations or jumping or whatever. You can't interact with them; all you're seeing is their ghost (soul?).
2. You can leave messages on the ground which other players can read. You can leave hints or comments or trick them or whatever.
3. Sometimes you will come across a big bloodstain on the ground. When you check it, it will spawn a ghost of another player and you can see how they died there.
4. Another gameplay point seems to be that when you die, you come back as a soul, meaning you only have half your max HP. You can't get your body back until you defeat a boss. However, if a living player has a certain item, they can use it to summon souls to his side (sort of like pokemon). You can go to his game and have multiplayer this way, and when you defeat a boss you'll get your body back, which should be a lot easier with a team. The catches are that when the summoner dies, you're transported back to your world. Also, there isn't any voice chat; only animated gestures.
5. Alternatively, if you don't feel like teaming up with someone or fighting a boss, you can instead teleport to someone else's game and attempt to kill him. If you do, you'll get resurrected. If not, there's some penalty I don't know.
6. I guess this is spoilers for one of the bosses but it's really cool. Supposedly one boss can pick you up and throw you into another room, which is filled with other players (how the game sets this up I don't know). You then have to duke it out in a giant battle royale, because only the last one standing may leave the room and the defeat the boss.
and
You aren't usually fighting alongside other players, but at the same time you constantly run into evidence of other people playing. Either you'll see a ghost image of another player in the same area you're in in their game (you can't interact, just observe them playing), or read messages, or whatever. It makes this epic crusade all these knights are on feel very real, as there are players all over this game world working toward the same goal.
The messages work really well. For example you can't really jump horizontally, but there are several places where you need to leap down, and people leave really useful info on where you can get down to secret areas. The developers are being pretty clever about it too. there are several areas where enemies ambush you, or arrow traps spring up quickly, that were obviously made so that people could help each other out of them. There was this particular boss that kept destroying us again and again, until we noticed this stray message someone had written in the arena. It read something like "Here. Don't move" and it turns out someone had found a safe spot in the room where the boss couldn't get to you. So cool to find.
And speaking of bosses, this game is rather difficult. Even with as much life energy as possible, with the best armor one could reasonably have, at any given point, you won't be able to take more than 4 or 5 hits at best. And a lot of bosses will kill you in two. This isn't Dynasty Warriors. You have to become pretty adept at using your shield, and rolling out of the way intelligently based on the sounds/attack animations that bad guys make.
I'm almost 99% positive that you do lose souls when you die. That's the incentive for not charging in swinging, and generally proceeding with caution. They don't take away souls you have spent leveling up or upgrading equipment, but any loose souls are void if you die as a ghost.
There were some things that we couldn't quite figure out though. Apparently you could enter other people's games in an antagonistic role, and appear as an evil looking black shadow thing, but we never really figured out the mechanics of it. Also, is there anyway to "sell" old weapons/pieces of equipment? The game isn't terribly loot heavy, and you will want to hold on to stuff, as even early equipment can be upgraded into usefulness by spending souls on it...but there will eventually come equipment that you no longer have any use for. And it seemed odd that you could do nothing with it.
For anyone worried about importing, the game seemed extremely English friendly from my perspective. Though since it isn't an English release, finding pertinent information is difficult, so finding a community of player like the something Awful boards seems like a good idea.
